Customers of various businesses, such as retail merchants, government entities or financial institutions, are often required to present an identification to complete a transaction. For instance, a merchant may require customer identification for various types of purchases (e.g., alcohol, lottery or tobacco purchases) or when certain types of payments (e.g., checks, credit cards) are presented to pay for transactions. Financial institutions usually require customers to present an identification to complete a withdrawal or deposit transaction, cash a check, or open a new account. Government entities may require identification for access into secure areas or other purposes. Other businesses may also require identification from customers.
Unfortunately, a number of advances have been made in counterfeiting technology which make it increasingly difficult for the naked eye to distinguish legally issued identification documents from fraudulent identification documents. In response, government agencies and other entities are issuing identification documents/cards in which data is encoded within a magnetic stripe and/or two-dimensional barcode. In order to validate and verify the encoded information contained within the magnetic stripe or two-dimensional barcode, a business needs to purchase a hardware device (e.g., an IDLogix C100 Terminal) that will read and validate the encoded data. Thus, businesses must attach yet another hardware device to their existing transaction systems. Additionally, identity verification may add one more processing step that must be completed in a transaction with a customer.